Ancient bones can reveal hair and eye color

Dr Wojciech Branicki, from the Institute of Forensic Research and Jagielonian University, Kraków and Prof Manfred Kayser, from the Erasmus University Rotterdam have spent the past few years developing a process to determine the hair and eye color of human remains up to 800 years old.

The system uses 24 DNA polymorphisms (naturally occurring variations), and can help with research where color photos or portraits are not available.